While media coverage has focused on setbacks, American schools have roared back to life

Media coverage has downplayed the successful return of in-person learning, amplifying risks and setbacks instead. But the good news is slowly getting out.

By Alexander Russo

Puttering around the house on Saturday morning, I was surprised to hear WNYC education reporter Jessica Gould observe that the relaunch of the nation’s largest school system had so far gone better than expected.

That the week had gone relatively well wasn’t a surprise to me. The smiling faces of kids and parents in the neighborhood and on the playground told me that, along with the relatively minor nature of the problems that were being reported.

The surprise was that an education reporter had said so out loud on the radio. So far, at least, news coverage that I’ve seen has overwhelmingly focused on COVID concerns and setbacks: cases and closures, bus and website problems, fearful parents wanting remote options, and negative speculation about what might happen next. The headlines and accompanying stories have been predominantly negative.

The reality that hasn’t gotten the headlines it deserves is what I call “The Big Return.” The vast majority of K-12 school districts are providing full-time in-person learning to kids. Parents are sending their kids back. Teachers are teaching them. And COVID cases and quarantine protocols haven’t closed major school districts — yet.

Think about it. Roughly a quarter of the kids in the nation who were doing remote or hybrid learning at the end of the last school year are now back full time. That’s more than 12 million kids back in classrooms compared to last spring. Add millions more if you compare the present to September 2020. And yet there have been precious few headlines and stories about this remarkable comeback.

Why the discrepancy between what’s happening and what’s being reported? There are lots of reasons. But the good news about back-to-school 2021-22 is getting out here and there, and it will be hard to ignore if things keep going as well as they have been so far.

Roughly a quarter of the kids in the nation who were doing remote or hybrid learning at the end of the last school year are now back full time. That’s more than 12 million kids back in classrooms compared to last spring. Add millions more if you compare the present to September 2020.

A month or two ago, it seemed possible or even likely that schools would switch back to remote learning or hybrid. There was a surging Delta virus, plus resistance to vaccines and mask-wearing in some states. In the past 18 months, many districts had taken a conservative approach, relying on school closures and remote/hybrid programs. Some had barely opened last year or had to be pressured to do so.

But somehow the about-face that I expected didn’t happen. The Biden White House, teachers unions, and school district leaders were uncharacteristically stalwart in their insistence on in-person learning. Schools and districts made adjustments to keep kids safely in school.

The process has been messy and precarious, to be sure. The success could be short-lived. But for now at least millions more kids are back in school than last year. You might not know it from reading news coverage.

A month or two ago, it seemed possible or even likely that schools would switch back to remote learning or hybrid. But somehow the about-face that I expected didn’t happen.

It’s not that each and every story about back-to-school has been deeply flawed. Risks and safety measures warrant coverage, as do COVID cases in kids and teachers. The changing roster of COVID rules is a legitimate story, along with vaccine approvals and other CDC announcements.

What’s problematic is that so many of the stories put out by some of the largest national and local education teams are predominately negative, focused on COVID case counts, quarantines, school closures, and deaths.

The balance is off. Add on the speculative stories that the schools might close, the teachers might leave, the parents might boycott — reportorial attempts to cover problems that don’t yet exist in any significant way — and you’ve got a real mess.

The overall message is that the school reopening is shaky, but that’s not at all the case at this point, as far as I can tell.

It’s not that each and every story about back-to-school has been deeply flawed. Risks and safety measures warrant coverage, as do COVID cases in kids and teachers. 

Why the lack of appropriate coverage, including both setbacks and successes? There’s no easy answer.

As has been discussed several times before, news coverage that focuses on raw numbers of case counts, quarantines, or school closures — now up around 2,000 nationally since the start of school, according to Burbio — can make the problems seem enormous to reporters and readers. It’s easy to forget that there are nearly 100,000 K-12 schools and roughly 50 million students.

Reporters may simply have tunnel vision when it comes to how schools get covered during a pandemic, focusing habitually on safety and risk even when there are other stories to tell. “Can I get an article where COVID protocol doesn’t dominate 75% of the article?” tweeted one parent. “It’s maddening.”

The recent success is tentative and imperfect. Southern and Western states with lower vaccine rates and weaker mask and mitigation requirements have seen lots of COVID infections among kids, and places like NYC have only been in person for a week.

“No other policy area performs ‘the sky is falling’ with the combination of panache, conviction, and regularity that we do in education,” quipped Princeton sociology professor Jen Jennings. Ditto for education journalism.

But there are some other, more fundamental explanations.

One central issue seems to be the easy assumption that reopening schools is causally related to kid COVID infections — i.e., that kids get and transmit COVID at schools. Headline after headline has linked or implied this connection. For example, U.S. hospitals remain overwhelmed by outbreaks as children return to classrooms or  How In-Person Teaching Is Affecting U.S. Covid Outbreaks in Schools (since changed to “Here’s How In-Person Teaching is Playing Out Across the U.S”).

Another assumption baked into stories like this U.S. News overview seems to be that a certain amount of COVID in a community or school “closes” schools. COVID cases don’t close schools. School officials do (or parents, if they refuse to send their kids).

At heart, the tendency to focus on the negative may be the most fundamental factor. “No other policy area performs ‘the sky is falling’ with the combination of panache, conviction, and regularity that we do in education,” quipped Princeton sociology professor Jen Jennings. Ditto for education journalism.

When the COVID-related school news isn’t bad enough, some other kind of crisis is spotlighted: Parents are going to boycott. Schools are going to disenroll kids. Teachers are quitting. “Test to stay” is reckless or unworkable. There aren’t enough buses. The list goes on and on.

Perhaps one or several of these are going to turn into major problems in the coming weeks and months. But that’s not the case so far, and those stories shouldn’t be pushing aside the larger story of millions of kids back in classrooms for the first time in months. Given the last 18 months, a short-term shortage of bus drivers needed to get kids back into schools is a good problem to have.

Given the last 18 months, a short-term shortage of bus drivers needed to get kids back into schools is a good problem to have.

There have been some exceptions to the general trend in coverage, of course. The good news about back-to-school 2021-22 is slowing getting out, and news outlets are covering it.

The L.A. Times published a story reporting that regional COVID mitigation policies appear to be working in schools. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that there were cases but no outbreaks in local schools. The New York Times reported on districts implementing “test to stay.” The Mercury News reported that COVID cases were falling after the first month of school.

Some outlets appear to be reporting COVID cases more carefully. U.S. News noted that the numbers of cases and closures are relatively small given the enormous size of the U.S. school system. WBUR Boston Public Radio reported COVID cases using percentages in their headlines rather than just using raw case numbers.

The Times’ How Pandemic America Went Back to School notes that roughly 25 percent more kids are attending schools that have “roared back to life.”

But there aren’t nearly enough “so far, so good” stories — much less “roaring back against all odds” headlines that would seem appropriate.

I hope that things continue to go well for kids and schools and that education coverage finds better ways to address the mix of success and challenges in the coming weeks.

Previously from The Grade

COVID coverage concerns from a health & science journalist’s perspective

Negative COVID coverage and prolonged school shutdowns

This year’s back to school coverage has been unnecessarily alarmist — again. 

The tentative successes of in-person learning deserve more coverage (2020)